"Is it really going to be long?"
"What?"
"Before you come back? You kiss me as if you were going for a long time, far away."
"I kissed you to give myself courage."
Enguerrand, who, when he had a hard lesson to learn, always did the same thing, appeared to understand her.
"You are going to do some thing you don't like."
"Yes, but I have to do it, because you see it is my duty."
"Do grown people have duties?"
"Even more than children."
"But it isn't your duty to write a copy—your writing is so pretty. Oh! that's what I hate most. And you always say it is my duty to write my copy. I'll go and do it while you do your duty. So that will seem as if we were both together doing something we don't like—won't it, mamma?"